


Adrift in an Endless Ocean

by noveltea



Category: Sanctuary - Fandom
Genre: Community: fandom_stocking, Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-04
Updated: 2011-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-14 10:22:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/148230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noveltea/pseuds/noveltea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When everything’s over it’s the biting cold that brings Helen back to herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adrift in an Endless Ocean

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2010 fandom_stocking fest for majorsamfan

When everything’s over it’s the biting cold that brings Helen back to herself.

All around her, ice mingles with bodies and debris, and the screams have faded now to a distant and dull hum as voices start to fade into the night.

She tries to piece together the events and can’t quite sort them out. Not yet anyway.

She has just one task to focus on, keeping her head above the water. The first opportunity she’d been given she’d learnt how to swim, although how anyone could be expected to swim in such inclement conditions she had no idea.

It’s when her feet and legs start to go numb that a twinge of fear creeps through her body.

She’s never truly been afraid of anything, not even death.

She’s achieved much in her life, very little of it evident in her face, but she’d seen far more than many of the others onboard the ship. The same, unsinkable ship that was sinking now to the depths, taking with it countless thousands of human lives and a number of abnormals to a watery grave on the bottom of the ocean.

Undoubtedly she’d known some of them, had conversed with them on this journey.

One day she might remember their faces in a flash of memory, if she survived this night.

Her lower body is so cold that it takes everything she has to cling to the driftwood now, and kick half as frequently as when she’d hit the water.

She doesn’t know if she’ll die from this.

She truly doesn’t know how anyone could walk away from such devastation untouched and not haunted by the faces of the dead.

She can’t remember when she started talking to herself, reciting names, half-remembered conversations, songs and facts, but it gives her something to focus on, beside the freezing temperatures.

When she wakes up finally she’s surrounded by women rowing a boat and calling for survivors. One looks down at her, sympathy evident in clear and determined eyes.

“You’ll make it,” she declares and turns back to her search.

Helen doesn’t know her name, but she will.

And she’ll remember.


End file.
